Just when it looked like the "shrink-wrapped" mind-set ("if you post it
on the World Wide Web they will learn") was suffocating further discussions about
online learning (Brown, 2000), conversations about what it means to facilitate interaction
have begun permeating these discussions. Like a spring breeze, the voices of teachers and
researchers who value student input and faculty sanity are emerging to bring new
inspiration to the direction of online educational environments. Still under question,
though, are what instructional strategies best compliment the cyber-medium and the future
of education.

This issue, we explore what a number of experts suggest is important teaching online.
We begin by perusing a trio of publications about online learning from the online
Chronicle of Higher Education. We also examine a recent study of asynchronous discussion
in the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks on the principles for online education
developed by a faculty initiative at three universities, and conclude with some
speculations on the communal implications of online spaces.

These articles represent a spectrum of online pedagogical philosophies, ranging from
arguments for keeping students on-task with detailed online protocols and
"cyber-corrals" to assertions that the potential relationships between online
learners are at least as important as the subject matter of the course.

Our colleagues at the Chronicle brought out an interesting group of articles recently,
demonstrating the range of opinions on student agency in online pedagogy, beginning with
Carrs (1999) report, "On-Line Instructors Can Corral Long Mouth
Students." Carr reports on the work of Jennifer Lieberman, who educates faculty about
teaching online. Lieberman, framing her advice on managing student contributions, remarks,
"Domineering students who monopolize class conversation can be as difficult in
on-line courses as they are in traditional classrooms." Lieberman proposes a few
strategies for equalizing student contributions, such as thanking quieter students in
class-wide e-mail and imposing guidelines on length and numbers of student messages. Such
structure provides an overt framework within which students can function equitably.
Liebermans focus, according to Carr, is on the importance of establishing
"ground rules" that provide an opportunity to balance the contributions of
members of the learning community, mitigating the influence of prolific posters, whom she
calls "long mouths." In her framework, Lieberman says, "Everyone gets their
whole response out without being interrupted, and having those responses written down
makes the louder, more vocal student see and acknowledge the response of the quieter
student."

Liebermans advocacy for student voices, however, is confused by some of the
language she uses to discuss student learning. Her explanations of ground rules and
balancing acts indicate a respect for student voice and agency--clearly creating a
situation where quiet students can express themselves without interruption reflects the
value she places on fairness. However, whether or not the reality of uninterrupted
opportunities for expression actually does make the more vocal student acknowledge the
response of the quieter one remains questionable. There is also something we find
unsettling in her intentions to "make" students "see and acknowledge"
and that she intends to "corral" those who would "monopolize" and
those who are "domineering." This irony reminds us of the conundrum of using our
authority as instructors to promote egalitarian learning environments.

In a second article on the challenges of teaching in cyber-land, Sarah Carr (2000),
reports on the work of Donald Winiecki, another experienced online instructor who also
speaks to the challenge of achieving equilibrium in an online classroom. Winiecki,
however, places more concern on striking a balance between course content, mastery of
technology, and facilitated student interaction than on balancing student contributions.
Students "gradually learn about the subject," he notes, but they "also
learn how to apply effective conversational practices to discussions carried out by e-mail
and computer conferencing." After about three months, Winiecki observes that his
students are working "smarter [if] not necessarily working harder."
Learning "to work in the medium," says one of Winieckis students, takes
the same effort as "dealing with the content," and "working smarter,"
it appears, means letting the impromptu relationships that develop between the
student-learners take up as much if not more space than the machinery and even the
scripted content of the course.

This question concerning what aspects of the course should take priority is recast in
Bart Beaudins (2000) study "Keeping Online Asynchronous Discussions on
Topic." The literature Beaudin consults for his study states that when learners
retain ownership of their learning "without being manipulated and controlled,"
increased learning occurs. However, in his discussion of keeping online discussions on
topic, Beaudin acknowledges the paradoxical challenge that the cost of encouraging
learners to make learning their own is their tendency "to lose focus on the original
intent of the instructor or the course objectives."

Beaudins research attempts to identify successful strategies educators use to
keep online learners on topic without forfeiting students motivation for taking
responsibility for their own learning. A survey of 135 online instructors was used to
ascertain what they recommended and what they actually used to keep online discussions on
track. The top ranked items were carefully designing good questions, providing guidelines
for learners to use when preparing their responses, rewording the question when
discussions go off topic, and providing discussion summaries. Beaudin concludes that
"this exploratory study reinforced many of the principles and practices used in
face-to-face classrooms to keep discussion on topic and should serve as a reminder that
good instructional design is essential whether it is online or face-to-face."

Beaudins study does corroborate the belief of several distance educators that
learner-learner interaction is instrumental to the support of learner-content interaction.
The key to this balancing act of human interactions, Beaudin reports, is a responsive
moderator. And the moderator, Beaudin reminds us, does not need to be the instructor.
Because the traits of the moderator or facilitator are only rudimentarily understood in
traditional education, much less in an online environment, considerable work remains to
describe the role and purpose of the position. Fortunately for us, this need for
definition indicates a window of opportunity for further study that could breathe new life
into our teaching.

The shift these changes reflect has more to do with moving from presentational to
well-facilitated interactive pedagogies than it has to do with technologies, and,
specifically, more to do with the growing realization that learning environments must
acknowledge and address a new paradigm that identifies a course as a body of content
subordinate to an authentic sequence of activities and the group of learners who will
engage in those activities and that content. It is not a trivial change of focus.

Online expert Ken White (Young, 2000), seems to agree. Managing a healthy interpersonal
environment, according to White, is paramount to the success of a good online course.
White, co-author of a guidebook for teaching online, holds a degree in education and
organizational communication and has worked as an instructor with both the University of
Phoenix and Washingtons Evergreen community college. He argues that online education
can and "should be an interpersonal environment." He advocates educational
transformation requiring dialogue and interactions that "allow personalities
to come across [through] the medium." To do so, White provides detailed advice, and
cautions teachers that students need more than just ground rules up front; they need
timely personal responses to students questions, responses that acknowledge that
student questions and comments are important. Immediate feedback from either the teacher
or the other students prevents students from filling in the communication void with
negative assumptions about why no one has yet responded. The explicit advice White
provides, however, rests upon a critical caveat: the optimal interpersonal learning
environment requires limited class size and hard work.

This advice is not new, if not always, or even frequently, heeded. Whites advice
echoes an earlier report written by Lawrence C. Ragan (1998), director of a three-year
study on distance education. This study, the Innovations in Distance Education (IDE)
project, united Penn State and Lincoln and Cheyney universities in establishing a set of
foundational principles and learning goals supportive of distance education and distance
educators. Central to the mission of the study was the examination of "fundamental
principles of what constitutes quality instructional interaction." In the IDE
project, principles are grouped into five broad categories: Learning Goals and Content
Presentation, Interactions, Assessment and Measurement, Instructional Media and Tools, and
Learner Support Systems. In the development of these categories, the IDE group generated
an abundance of teacherly advice: learning goals should "be publicly available and
communicated clearly and explicitly"; assessment "should be congruent with the
learning goals and should be consistent"; students "should be provided ample
opportunities and accessible methods for providing feedback"; and media "should
reflect the diversity of potential learners."

Ragan and his colleagues caution that without a "firm understanding of the
fundamental principles of what constitutes quality instructional interaction
decisions are made based on the merits of the technology or methodologies without
consideration of the long-term and potential benefit to the student." Certainly this
point has an all-too-familiar ring.

In the final distillation of this literature, it seems that well-moderated student
interactions structured by frameworks that ask good questions and allow for the
establishment of ground rules create the most productive of online communities. However,
despite the simplicity of such a condensation of the published advice, the complexity of
fashioning such an environment defies clear articulation. In fact, perhaps the most
telling aspect of all of the advice can be found in Beaudins (2000) conclusion,
where he reports that the teachers he surveyed did not even take their own advice. Beaudin
grasps at the plausible explanation "that online instructors may see what they are
doing could actually be improved upon if they tried an alternative technique."
Consequently, they recommend techniques that they think will work rather than what they
actually employ.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the mantra "good teaching is good teaching" is the
one that experienced online teachers always seem to retrieve from their excursions into
the ether. The cyber-medium may offer us ways to include individuals in conversations that
once would have been inaccessible to them, but the fundamental challenges of teaching,
like life, are never easy.

Carr, S. (2000). Learning to communicate online is a challenge for new distance-ed
students. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Friday, December 10, 1999. Retrieved January
17, 2000from the World Wide Web: http://chronicle.com/free/2000/01/2000011301u.htm

Ragan, L. C. (1998). Good teaching is good teaching: An emerging set of guiding
principles and practices for the design and development of distance education. DEOSNEWS,
(8)12. (Online serial: www.ed.psu.edu/ACSDE/). Retrieved January 12, 2000 from the World
Wide Web: http://www.ed.psu.edu/ACSDE/deosnews8.12.htm

Rosmarin, A. (1985). Profile: The art of leading a discussion. In Morganrouth-Gullette,
Margaret (Ed.), On Teaching and Learning, Cambridge, MA. Harvard-Danforth Center for
Teaching and Learning.

Young, J. R. (2000). Logging in with Ken W. White: Advice for the online
instructor: Keep it interpersonal. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Thursday January 13,
2000. Retrieved January 17, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://chronicle.com/free/2000/01/2000011101u.htm

I recommend publication, but not without some major revisions as follows.

The first paragraph severely strains the author's credibility. Apparently the author is
unaware of a wealth of literature on facilitating online interaction going back 20 years.
In particular, the author does not seem to be familiar with the pioneering work of
Harasim, Paulsen, Hiltz and Turoff, and more recently Berge and Collins, and obviously has
never been to Collins' "Moderator's Home Page" at http://www.emoderators.com/moderators.shtml.
This paragraph needs a total rewrite.

A summary of current literature on facilitating online interaction -- with that context
clearly stated -- would be a useful contribution to TS. From that perspective, much of the
article is good. However, given the abundance of good current stuff out there in this
area, I question the author's selection of publications. The Chronicle of Higher Education
is a news publication, not a scholarly journal. As a result, the article comments upon the
result of a news reporter's interview with a faculty member with something to say about
online interactions. TS readers deserve something better. The article would be much
stronger if the author reviewed reports of original research or at least original case
studies on the topic; e.g., primary sources. Inclusion of the Journal of ALN report was
totally appropriate, as was the Ragan study. Just ditch the Chronicle stuff and find more
publications like these two.

Disagreements with the publications being reviewed should be based on the literature or
other scientific evidence, not just the author's opinion. His/her assessment of the
Lieberman quotes was inappropriate without a supporting citation, for example. This was
one of several missed opportunities to tie the publications being reviewed to past
literature on the topic.

The writing style is unprofessional in places. "Our colleagues at the
Chronicle..."? "Cyber-land"?

The title is misleading. "Talking" refers to oral communications, not
written. I was expecting an article about the use of conferencing tools that enable speech
transmission. Also, use of "the ether" in the last paragraph was inappropriate.
"The ether" relates to wireless transmissions. The term has long been used to
describe radio broadcasting and in this context would be applicable only to wireless
networks. Again, misuse of terms such as these strains the author's credibility.

I strongly recommend this commentary/review for publication in the
Technology Source. This is a refreshingly insightful review of several recent articles
published in the Chronicle and elsewhere. In particular, I appreciated the authors'
refusal to reduce the complex notion of interactivity into the typical mantra of
"it's good and desirable." I enjoyed that their response to Lieberman's
strategies for corralling students highlights the problematic nature of instructor
authority and double-edged nature of democracy in the classroom; and I enjoyed the way
they blurred the boundaries between course content, student-student interaction, and
technology mastery. I've had similar arguments about how *fun* learning some content can
be when it is also intrinsically hard to master! Finally, I welcomed the authors'
identification of the reality of hard work that is involved when instructors attempt to
actually make online environments "highly interactive" (and that they admit this
without dismissing the entire enterprise is also appreciated). A thought-provoking
manuscript for publication to be sure! Let's definitely keep talking.